Welcome to the Blog Page of Mike Mallari, the Community Director & Affiliates Manager for X10 Wireless Technology. This blog focuses on both Community and Affiliate aspects of X10.
In addition, from time to time I like to share stories about life, family, sports, and other things. I hope you enjoy my blog. If you share a passion for the same things I do, then please check out my regular postings, as I think you will enjoy what I have to say!

Making Money on Google With X10

How does Google do it? Many people have asked me this very question, especially those new to search engines and keyword bidding. You look at the site and you see a plain and simple looking page. Yet, they have the world’s financial backing behind them and have deep pockets consisting of billions of dollars.

The secret to Google’s success lies not on the fact that anything and everything on the web can be found on their website, but the fact that retailers, merchants, and those in the web industry pay for advertisement space on their site. How are they doing this you ask? Since Google likes to list every site in the world as it is for free?

The key to a web site operator’s success lies in placement, or where they can be found throughout Google when a user types in a search. Kind of like an auction, Google allows you to bid on top placement throughout their site. The higher you “rank” on a search, the more likely you are to gain business. This is why advertisers are paying so much money and throwing it Google’s way.

Google’s success is so evident, that our top affiliates generate the bulk of their sales on there versus other search engines, especially other popular sites that provide the same service.

So how do successful affiliates advertise X10 products on Google and make money you ask? In a recent conversation with many of our top affiliates, their strategies are all alike. The best way to go about making money is to know the company you want to advertise. Do your research and put together a keyword list of about 50 popular terms that that company would use. These could be words to describe the company, products they manufacture, or general things evolved around that company. The next thing to do is have your list ready and to start your bidding on Google AdWords, Google’s program that allows you to bid on these key terms. After time, it’s important to keep re-updating your list, especially if that company keeps pushing out new products, Many Affiliates keep their lists close to them and hate to give up their key terms, especially when competing against other bidders, or they may have discovered a magic word that generates revenue that others may not have thought of.

Remember, placement is key when bidding on terms. You want to get listed towards the front of a search, but you don’t necessarily have to be listed first, especially when cost is key. What you must keep in mind is that you pay each time someone clicks on your text link as a result of your listing. So when listing a site, your goal is to make as much revenue as possible to offset the costs of your biddings. Make sure you have a site that has the ability to make sales and generate revenue for you, this ensures your keyword bidding experience on Google will be as profitable and beneficial as you can make it. This leads to a reminder, if you choose to use the pay-per-click channel, X10’s only rule if you bid on a keyword that X10 bids on, is that you not outbid X10. We do this not because we always want top spot, but we do this to prevent a bidding war between the affiliates, meaning a fair bidding for everyone.

So you have no budget, can you still make money on Google? Absolutely! Recently Google re-upated the rankings of websites on their search engines. During this re-ranking, many sites were moved around. During a search a site that may have been previously listed on the first page was now showing up in the fifth page, and so on. So how do you counter this and get your site back towards the front? This was a question I posed to many of our top affiliates. As they saw their pages start to fall towards the back of a search, they started to add new content to their pages. Content such as articles, write-ups, and faqs about the products they were advertising. The reason for this was to strengthen their site placement and drive more traffic to their site. Now instead of just advertising banners, they were providing comparisons, they were also providing instruction and reviews. So as readers start to find their ways to their sites, their rankings started to rise putting them back towards the front of a search.

What else affects site placement?
Many top affiliates who do not use the pay-per-click campaign rely on forums or blogs to help them with their rankings. By adding daily blog entries it shows to the search engines that constant new information is being updated on a website and that the site is not stale. This looks good to search engines. There are also special search engines for blogs to get your sites listed. This helps to draw traffic to your site and also helps with your Google Rankings. Forums are great for their ability to bring people to your site. Especially if you can garner constant posters and readers. Forums help your rankings when your site is active and will result in a rise of your ratings.

I want to know what you think. Especially if your site was affected, or if you use other techniques to assist in your Google rankings. The more we know the more we all can benefit.